The fourth annual commemoration of the Rev. A.H. McNeil’s life and work in Hopkinsville is planned on Saturday, Oct. 11, at Grace Episcopal Church, 216 E. Sixth St.
Community members are invited to participate in the commemoration, which begins at 10:30 a.m. with a service led by Grace’s rector, the Very Rev. Stephen Spicer.
There will be a question-and-answer session at 11:15 p.m., followed by a pilgrimage to McNeil’s gravesite at Union Benevolent Society Cemetery on Vine Street.
McNeil was born in North Carolina in 1858, graduated from Hampton Normal and Agriculture Institute in 1877 and later studied theology at Howard University. He came to Hopkinsville in the early 1890s to serve at the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.
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Today the building that served as the chapel is a crisis relief agency, the Aaron McNeil House. Although his full name was Alexander Hamilton McNeil, the clergyman somehow became known as Aaron McNeil in Hopkinsville — a mistake that remain undiscovered until a few years ago when Spicer and his wife, Amy, began researching his life and ministry.
“From the time he graduated from Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1877 to his death in Hopkinsville in 1901, we find McNeil bringing resources and education that were previously unavailable to impoverished rural communities as well as growing urban settings,” states an informational flyer from the church. “This commemoration and educational series strives to honor the achievements he made …”
